Gangs and other criminal networks are increasingly turning to a new business plan — selling people for sex.

"What makes sex trafficking different than, say, drug trafficking, or even labor trafficking, is that sex traffickers have something they can continue to resell," said Virginia, a victim liaison for the anti-trafficking nonprofit Paso Del Norte Center of Hope. She asked that only her first name be used, fearing that traffickers could use her to find the victims she works with.

"Once they sell their drugs or sell a labor-trafficking victim to someone, those drugs or victim are gone," she said. "With sex trafficking, they sell these victims multiple times a day and continue making a profit."

REPORTER

Aaron Martinez

To date, the U.S. government has prosecuted more than 200 cases of street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs in which commercial sex acts, prostitution or human trafficking are mentioned, according to Global Centurion, a nonprofit anti-trafficking group.

And the number of gangs using underage victims is increasing, according to a Gang Criminal Activity Expanding Into Juvenile Prostitution Intelligence Report by the National Gang Intelligence Center and the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit.

"Juvenile prostitution is expanding as an additional source of income for many gangs, primarily for its high and steady financial rewards and perceived low risk of apprehension and punishment," the study states.

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Members of the Gangster Disciples, a gang whose roots go back to the 1960s in Chicago, are implicated in two of the most recent cases of alleged sex trafficking in El Paso. The Disciples, which are part of the Folk Nation alliance of gangs, began as neighborhood drug pushers, but the group has now spread to 40 states, according to the U.S. Justice Department, and increasingly, the Disciples appear to be forcing women into prostitution to supplement their income.

Timothy McCullouch Jr., 28, was working as a probation officer when he was arrested in January and charged with helping the Gangster Disciples operate a sex-trafficking ring in El Paso.

Julio Lara, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, testified at McCullouch's indictment hearing that the former University of Texas at El Paso football player had been instrumental in forcing two El Paso girls, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old, into prostitution for the gang.

McCullouch has not been clearly identified as a member of the gang, but the four other men arrested in connection with the sex-trafficking ring are believed to be Gangster Disciples. And the El Paso Police Department's Gang Unit lists McCullouch as a gang member, Lara testified.

The 15-year-old, identified only as "A.J." in court documents, was young, vulnerable and troubled — exactly the kind of person who gangs that traffic in sex look for.

She was a student at the El Paso County Probation Department's Samuel F. Santana Challenge Academy, a military-style program that combines treatment and education for high-risk juvenile offenders.

A fellow student, the 17-year-old girl identified as "L.A." in the documents, invited A.J. to meet a group of friends at an El Paso hotel. L.A. said they could "make some money."

Lara testified that McCullouch was one of the men in the hotel room and that the teens had met him at least 10 times.

McCullouch, known as "T.J.," was waiting for the girls with Richard Gary, 24, known as "Crenshaw," Lara testified.The girls told investigators that they took ecstasy with the men, and then McCullouch and Gary discussed who was going to prostitute which girl. McCullouch took A.J. Gary took L.A.

A.J. went to McCullouch's apartment, where he refused to feed her and raped her repeatedly, Lara testified. McCullouch posted advertisements on websites such as backpage.com offering A.J. for sex at local hotels, court documents state, and he prostituted A.J. from June 27, 2012, to July 10, 2012.

Lara testified that McCullouch threatened to beat A.J. if she refused and kept her under constant supervision, driving her to and from the hotels where she met the men who paid to have sex with her.

Law enforcement and advocacy group officials would not comment on the case because it was still pending in court. All information on the case is taken from federal court testimony and criminal complaint affidavits filed by officials from HSI and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A.J. and L.A. were only two of several women who Gary and other alleged members of the Disciples forced to work as prostitutes as part of a multi-state sex-trafficking ring that ran from May 2012 to March 2013, law enforcement officials said. The gang allegedly forced girls and women to work as prostitutes in El Paso, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Colorado and Killeen, Texas.

Sex traffickers often move their victims to different locations along established routes to keep them off balance and in control, cut off from the people and the areas they know. It also helps the traffickers avoid law enforcement.

"The individuals responsible for this type of crime know that law enforcement will eventually detect that they are in the area, so they will work on what they call a circuit," said Edward Owens, assistant special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso. "They'll move from here to Las Cruces to Santa Fe to San Antonio to Houston to Dallas and then come back. They work a little circuit to not be detected by law enforcement, so they work in a city for a couple days or weeks and then move on to the next city."

Gary is also charged with forcing an adult female, identified as "K.B.," to work as a prostitute in July 2013, according to an arrest affidavit.

K.B. met Gary through a mutual friend and agreed to meet with him to "hang out and go to the movies," the affidavit states. Gary picked up K.B. in his vehicle and took her to a hotel, where she agreed to stay the night with him, she told investigators.

The next day, Gary allegedly began to try to talk K.B. into prostituting herself. Gary asked her to go to Killeen, Texas, Dallas and California, the affidavit states. K.B. refused and Gary allegedly pushed her to the floor, causing her to cut her right shoulder on a table.

When she tried to stand, she said, Gary put his foot on her chest to keep her from getting up.

K.B. told investigators that she was afraid of Gary and eventually agreed to his demands. Gary also used sites to such as backpage.com to arrange meetings with men in local hotel rooms, according to the affidavit.

K.B. told investigators that in two days in July, she had sex with about 10 men for about $200 each. K.B. said she was ordered to put the money in the hotel room's safe.

Once, when K.B. said she refused to respond to a text message from a customer, Gary grabbed her by the feet, dragged her off the bed and began hitting her.

K.B. attempted to her call her mother for help. Her mother told officers that she had received a call from her daughter, who said, "Mom, I want to go home," before the phone hung up.

A short while later, K.B. called her mother again, according to the affidavit. She said she heard her daughter yelling, "Stop hitting me! Stop, it hurts! Mom pick me up. I want to go home. Take me home."

On July 25, K.B. told investigators that Gary gave her $300 and told her she could leave. He told her that if she wanted the rest of the money she had earned, she could come back and work for him, the affidavit said.

Another reputed member of the Gangster Disciples, 20-year-old Tai Von "Trigg" Lynch, was in the room when Gary let her leave, according to the affidavit. Lynch warned Gary that K.B. would not come back. Gary wasn't worried. "I know where her and her family lay their heads at," he allegedly told Lynch.

Lynch was one of the five men arrested in the operation.

Deion "Memphis" Lockhart, 25, and his brother, Emmanual "E Jay" Lockhart, 23, were the other two alleged members of the Gangster Disciples arrested.

Deion Lockhart forced a 16-year-old into prostitution from August 2012 to October 2012, according to his arrest affidavit.

Like A.J., the girl was taken to a motel by a high school friend to "make some money," the affidavit states. When the two girls arrived at the Comfort Inn in the 900 block of Yarbrough Drive, they were met by four or five men and two other girls.

Deion Lockhart allegedly told the girl, identified as "A.G.," to sit in a motel room and answer the door when men came by. Then he robbed them, she told investigators. When A.G. eventually went to use the restroom. When she came back, the friend who brought her to the motel was gone, the affidavit states.

A.G. told investigators that she did what Deion Lockhart instructed, because he was "big" and "he scared her." He allegedly took photos of her without her shirt or pants, "for the website," and refused to answer her questions about the site. The other men at the hotel gave her advice on how to pose for the photos, the affidavit states.

A.G. told investigators that after taking the photos, she was allowed to get dressed was given marijuana.

Soon, a man came to the hotel and A.G. said that Deion Lockhart ordered her to have sex with him. She told investigators that she had sex with that man and two others that night for money. Deion Lockhart took all the money she made that night, according to the affidavit.

After that night, A.G. had sex with about five to six men a day. The men paid $100 for 30 minutes and $180 for an hour. A.G. was kept at various hotels or at Emmanual Lockhart's house, the affidavit states. A.G. was not allowed a cell phone. She kept none of the money she earned. She was only fed fast food, and only once a day.

"It is a deplorable way of living," said Sgt. Jose Hernandez, supervisor of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office strike team. "[Traffickers] will give them fast food in the morning and fast food at night, if they even get fed that many times in a day. As soon as they get a call that somebody is looking for an escort, they will transport them to the location and they will hover around the area until it is time. Then they pick up the victim and take them back to that same room where they are being housed at."

An unrelated case also involving the Gangster Disciples shows a similar pattern.

Two other alleged members of the gang pleaded guilty to charges related to sex trafficking earlier this year. Kiry Hakeem Nalls and Grant Rutledge held a woman for about a month and forced her to have sex with men for money. Nalls pleaded guilty Jan. 30 to a charge of forced labor. Rutledge pleaded guilty Feb. 3 to misprision, or concealing, a felony.

The woman told police that Nalls cut her arms with a razor blade and beat her repeatedly. Police arrested Nalls and Rutledge when they found the trio at the Super 8 Motel near Cielo Vista Mall. Nalls had taken the woman to a nearby desert to assault her because she tried to escape, and they returned to the Super 8 when police were investigating a report of a man with a gun.

The Gangster Disciples are a nationwide criminal organization, but smaller criminal operations in El Paso have also found sex-trafficking to be a lucrative venture.

Charles Marquez, 51, was found guilty last November on seven counts of sex trafficking and other related charges. Marquez led a sex-trafficking ring from to 2008 up until his arrest in 2012. The ring recruited women and teenage girls from Juárez for prostitution in El Paso motels, court documents states.

Marquez placed ads in local newspapers in Juárez seeking women for "discreet services" in El Paso.

The ads lured several women into applying for jobs, and then Marquez used threats of violence and deportation to make the women prostitute themselves.

One of Marquez's victims, identified in court documents as "H.C.P," was forced into prostitution from 2010 until 2012. She saw an advertisement in the El Diario de Juárez for work as a caretaker in El Paso, and she traveled to El Paso from Juárez to meet with Marquez about the job.

When the two met, Marquez told H.C.P. that she was going to be making sex videos for him. He then forced H.C.P. into prostitution, court documents state.

In December 2010, H.C.P. attempted to stop working for Marquez and fled to Mexico.

A member of the sex-trafficking ring, 38-year-old Martha Jimenez Sanchez, who pleaded guilty last year to her role in the ring, went to Juárez and told H.C.P. that if she did not return to work as prostitute, she would see Charlez Marquez's "bad side."

From January to March 2011, Sanchez took H.C.P. from Juárez to El Paso to work as a prostitute.

Also in 2012, Dennis Brackett, Monique Brackett and Gary Rinker, all from El Paso, were charged in connection with the sex trafficking of a 16-year-old girl.

The Brackeets allegedly rented a home and used it to force women and the teenage girl into prostitution. The 16-year-old told investigators that they promised to feed her crack-cocaine addiction if she prostituted herself. They also promised to provide her housing, food and clothing. The Brackeets allegedly kept all the money she earned from prostitution.

Last year, Dennis Brackett pleaded guilty to one count of forced labor. The charge against Monique Brackett was dismissed. Rinker pleaded guilty to a drug-related charge, while the sex-trafficking-related charge was dismissed.

In 2011, a music industry executive in Baltimore allegedly used his ties to the entertainment profession to lure girls to come to El Paso, New Orleans, York, Pa., and other locations to work as prostitutes and strippers, according to court records.

"In a lot of cases we have seen, gang members will tell them 'I am going to be your friend'; 'you always wanted to go to Hollywood'; 'you always wanted to go to New York'; 'we can make all this happen for you and we will take care of you, but you just have to do this for us,'" Owens said. "What starts out with what the teenagers perceived to see as an opportunity, solitude or security turns into a nightmare. At this point, they are taken away from their homes and their support network, and now they don't know what to do."

Alarcon Allen Wiggins, CEO of Baltimore-based 424 Records, 1 Team 1 Family Entertainment, DBD TV and DBD Productions, along with nine other Baltimore residents, allegedly conspired to commit sex trafficking and forced labor of children by force, fraud or coercion.

Wiggins and the others involved would recruit the women by promising them a music career, then take away their cell phones and enforce rules that made it impossible for the women to escape, federal court documents state. The defendants allegedly made the girls work as strippers and prostitutes to support the record label.

Three of the co-defendants in the case — DeAngelo Perry Smith, Deyonta Thompson and Marc Corey Williams — pleaded guilty to conspiracy of trafficking. Smith was sentenced to 14 years in prison, Thompson to more than 15 and half years, and Williams to 15 years.

Wiggins pleaded guilty in connection with the forced prostitution ring and was sentenced to 212 months in prison to be served in Maryland, but his lawyers filed court documents last year to have his plea withdrawn.

Sex trafficking cases have boomed across the nation, and recent research has shed new light on the size of the U.S. market.

In a 2014 study of the underground commercial sex industry in eight U.S. cities, the Urban Institute found that pimps average weekly incomes between $5,000 and almost $33,000. The underground sex market in Atlanta was valued at $290 million in 2007, "nearly 2.5 times bigger than the 2013 payroll of the Atlanta Falcons," the study said.

In Dallas, the underground sex market was valued at about $98 million in 2007.

The "perceived low risk" of sex trafficking has lured many criminal enterprises into the trade.

"A lot of it has to do with that they feel that are in control of these victims lives," the Center of Hope's Virginia said. "They have control over these individuals because they are undocumented, so they threaten them with, 'I can call the Border Patrol to come pick you up.' They threaten the victims with violence, so these individuals are too scared to go get help. The traffickers feel like they are in complete control of these victims."

However, officers at every level — local, state and federal — have begun to concentrate on trafficking and are concentrating on enforcement and prosecution.

"We know they are out there and we are out there looking for them," the El Paso County Sheriff's Office's Hernandez said. "We conduct various operations and through these operations we encounter some of these sex trafficking rings and sex trafficking victims. With these operations, which involve combing some of the websites known for sex trafficking, and along with tips from the public, we are looking for traffickers. And we are finding them."

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